Exclusive: Jaffe rejects BF3 hate and context-warping

Following a bizarre internet kerfuffle in which the Eat, Sleep, Play boss was accused of hating on Battlefield 3, David Jaffe has told VG247 he loves DICE and expects the game to be brilliant.

“I’ve enjoyed every Battlefield game I’ve ever played,” Jaffe wrote in an exclusive statement.

“I was very excited to get today’s EA and DICE email that reminded me that I would have access to the Battlefield 3 beta come September (access I gained from buying last year’s Medal of Honor, another game partially developed by DICE that I also really enjoyed).”

Jaffe had made comments about E3 footage of Battlefield 3 shown on GameTrailers, which showed a tank battle from the perspective of a turret, as not being enough evidence alone to label the game winner of everything forever. He was promptly accused of professional jealousy and besieged on Twitter and forums.

Now, the outspoken designer has explained that his comments were addressed at the general trend of treating graphical performance as the be-all and end-all, and not at Battlefield 3 in particular.

“My tweets were not complaining about the current well-deserved hype that Battlefield 3 has earned,” he protested.

“I have no issues with mega-hype that is based off amazing graphics and the trust that a great developer has so deservedly earned from its fans over the years.”

“My point was that based on that clip of gameplay alone, calling Battlefield 3 GAME OF THE SHOW and hyping it for anything other than the amazing visuals, was irresponsible and damaging to the medium because saying a game that looks amazing but doesn’t seem to have evolved beyond an arcade game from 1980 is the same as saying, ‘We don’t care about the play experience, we just care about visuals.’

“Do I think (and almost know for sure) that DICE is going to put out another amazing game in the series, regardless of how it looks? Of course they are. That was never my point. And I have no issues with mega hype that is based off amazing graphics and the trust that a great developer has so deservedly earned from its fans over the years.”

Jaffe was actually quite effusive in his praise for the game.

“I never said the game was not a dazzling beauty of a game that represents the current visual state of the art for games (because it does). And I never said the EA/DICE team members responsible for creating those amazing visuals (as well as the street battle visuals that I saw on the show floor) did not deserve all of the accolades I would hope they have been receiving (because they do). And I never said the game doesn’t deserve the hype that has come from the amazing visuals in that game (because it does).”

Although social media has granted developers greater accessibility to fan feedback, it has also increased the speed in which misinformation can spread, and Jaffe seemed quite rueful on the matter.

“You’d think when you’ve been taken out of context and out and out misquoted as much as I have, you’d learn to share nothing of yourself with the internet other than happy and positive and useless statements that have been processed and spit shined via the PR machines of the world. Alas, I’m either an idiot (likely) or just stubborn (for sure) cause I keep getting nailed by this stuff,” Jafe wrote.

“You’d think when you’ve been taken out of context and out and out misquoted as much as I have, you’d learn.”

“I’m hopeful that VG247 has a magic bit of web code that allows certain people’s reading comprehension to increase when they come to the site, cause lord knows, they missed the point when I was tweeting about it.”

Jaffe’s latest game, Twisted Metal, is a PlayStation 3 exclusive due in early October. Battlefield 3 drops on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 later in the month.